To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Progressive Labor Party, CHALLENGE is publishing a series of articles on our Party’s history, from its origins as the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) to its presence today in more than two dozen countries worldwide. This issue reviews one of PLP/PLM’s historic fights against racism.

In the class war to overthrow capitalism, fighting racism is a strategic necessity. When the bosses divide Black and white workers, the entire working class is denied the potential of Black workers’ leadership in the fight for armed communist revolution. In the United States, drawing from their historical super-oppression, Black workers led the battle against slavery. They have stood on the front lines in major strikes, in the fight for jobs and in other attacks on the profit system.
Ever since the 17th century, when Black slaves were first brought to the Americas from Africa, racism has been the keystone of the U.S. capitalist system. Racism pits groups of workers against one another, diluting our class’s strength in battles against the rulers. Racism enables the bosses to use lower-paid Black and Latin workers as a wedge against white workers struggling to improve wages and working conditions. As a result, the capitalist ruling class takes greater profits from all workers while stealing super-profits—totaling hundreds of billions of dollars a year—from Black and Latin workers.
By claiming that some workers are superior to others, racism devalues human life. To continue to build our Party, and ultimately to lead a communist revolution against the capitalist class, we must put the fight against racism and for multiracial, working-class unity front and center.
Harlem Rebellion
In 1964, the young Progressive Labor Movement played a lead role in the historic Harlem Rebellion, the first Black-led urban uprising of the era against police terror. On July 16, an off-duty cop, Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan, shot and murdered James Powell, a 15-year-old, 122-pound ninth-grader, in cold blood. For six consecutive nights, the anger of the Black masses boiled over in open rebellion in central Harlem and then in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Thousands of militant youth took to the streets, directing their anger at the cops and at price-gouging store owners. Molotov cocktails were hurled at shops and police cars. Thousands of cops were rushed to Harlem to quell the revolt, but it continued to spread. Thousands of gunshots were exchanged.
Mayor Robert Wagner and his police commissioner put Harlem under virtual martial law, outlawing demonstrations, rallies and marches. Civil rights misleaders tried to control the crowd by calling for “peaceful protest,” but were ignored. The phony “leftist” Communist Party USA (CPUSA) backed these reformist pleas for peace at any price. PLM was the only force to give political direction to the spontaneous rebellion.
Thousands of PLM posters declaring, “WANTED FOR MURDER, GILLIGAN THE COP!” were circulated throughout Harlem and beyond. Thousands of copies of CHALLENGE—first published a few weeks earlier—were distributed. Rebels marched in the streets with the paper’s front page as their flag.
PLM pointed out that the rebellion was also directed against Harlem’s pervasive racist conditions: an unemployment rate three times as high as the city as a whole; half the city’s average family income; three times the ratio of substandard housing; nearly twice the infant mortality rate. Black women workers were and are the most exploited section of the working class. This fight against racism was yoked to the fight against sexism. Though anti-sexist class-consciousness was not at the forefront, the Rebellion was also a fight against these sexist living and working conditions in Harlem.
Bosses Attack PL
The bosses’ media viciously attacked PL for “inciting riots.” The CPUSA called us “adventurist.” Our leaders’ lives were threatened, and they were tailed by the cops’ Red Squad 24 hours a day. Several were arrested for defying the rulers’ bans on demonstrations and for “inciting to riot,” which carried a potential sentence of 20 years in jail.
Specifically, PLM was enjoined from organizing marches between 110th Street and 155th Street for the whole width of Manhattan. We defied the ban and led a demonstration in the heart of Harlem. The Harlem PLM chapter leader was convicted and jailed for “inciting a riot,” as were the printers who made the Gilligan poster. Dozens of PL’ers and friends were subpoenaed before a grand jury and threatened with contempt citations, and several were convicted and served prison time. An international defense campaign was launched; leftist philosophers Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, among others, spoke out on our members’ behalf.
Although the rebellion soon subsided, our Party’s reputation stayed strong in Black communities throughout the U.S. In San Francisco, where we had been virtually unknown, nearly 500 militant Black workers and youth turned out to hear a PLM leader give an eyewitness report of the Harlem struggle. Following Harlem, more than 100 cities nationwide, not content with “cooling it,” felt the torch of rebellion.
Our role in the Harlem Rebellion is a testament to PL’s lifelong committment to fighting racism. This is part and parcel of defeating capitalism. We envision a world where the very concept of race will be abolished. We will build a communist society where all workers have the same opportunity to use all their potential to advance humanity and the planet. Join us in building the next generation of international leaders against racism.

From Eastern Europe to the Middle East to the Pacific, sharpening imperialist competition is escalating both regional warfare and the risk of global conflict. In the latest U.S. move to contain Russia, “the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry-fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries” (New York Times, 6/14/15). Barack Obama has announced plans for more U.S. troops and bases in Iraq. Meanwhile, as CHALLENGE recently reported, the U.S. and China are vying militarily over strategic Pacific and Indian Ocean shipping routes.
These conflicts represent potential imperialist flashpoints for a massive armed confrontation — and a heavy toll on the international working class. While the capitalist bosses create these wars, workers are pitted against each other on the frontlines. Workers suffer the brunt of the racism, sexism, and nationalism that are intensified by imperialist rivalries.
The Progressive Labor Party fights to rid the world of the capitalist system that generates these wars. We fight for a communist society that will end racism, sexism, nationalism, mass unemployment and poverty. We fight to put workers in control of running society.
U.S. Challenged by ISIS, Iran
After murdering more than three million workers and children in Iraq and displacing millions more in two decades of war and sanctions, U.S. bosses and allied imperialists won only shaky control over the country’s vast oil wealth. Their weakness created a power vacuum that U.S. enemies seek to fill. Obama’s latest move was prompted by ISIS’s (an armed capitalist organization also known as the Islamic State) territorial gains in Iraq and Syria, but also by Iran’s growing influence in the region. Despite U.S. backing of government and Kurdish forces, Tehran appears to be consolidating its leadership of the anti-ISIS effort (Long War Journal, 6/1/15).
Beyond the immediate challenge to U.S. control over Iraq’s oil reserves, Obama and the finance capitalists he serves fear the threat to U.S. control over the world’s foremost oil profit center, Saudi Arabia. Nowhere else is oil — the lifeblood of the profit system — more plentiful or cheaper to pump. Since the end of World War II, U.S. have allied with the Saudi royals to run the most lucrative business deal of the modern era. Protected by the U.S. Navy, ExxonMobil (with close to half a trillion dollars in annual sales) and a handful of other major oil companies dictate the terms of crucial energy supplies throughout the world.
But Iran is challenging Saudi/Exxon supremacy on two fronts: by arming anti-Saudi Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen, and by pursuing a nuclear arms program. At the same time, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the U.S. ruling-class think tank owned by the same finance capital interests as Exxon, worries about ISIS disrupting and then invading Riyadh, the Saudi capital. ISIS’s goal is to “ignite a sectarian civil war in Saudi Arabia by targeting the Shia community and provoking them to unleash their anger against the Saudi government” (CFR website, 6/11/15). Any serious fighting within Saudi Arabia will surely draw in U.S. troops.
Bombing Russia
In Europe, Vladimir Putin’s “Greater Russia” power plays present U.S. rulers with an equally dire predicament. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact alliance, U.S. bosses opportunistically welcomed ten ex-Soviet countries into NATO. Now they are planning to defend these additions to their empire from Putin’s imperialist counterattack — with massive, lethal force.

As the proposal stands now, a company’s worth of equipment — enough for about 150 soldiers — would be stored in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia…about 750 soldiers — would be located in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and possibly Hungary, they said.…The amount of equipment included in the planning is small compared with what Russia could bring to bear against the NATO nations on or near its borders, but it would serve as a credible sign of American commitment, acting as a deterrent the way that the Berlin Brigade did after the Berlin Wall crisis [Cold War-era dividing the city into pro-Soviet and pro-Western capitalist camps] in 1961 (New York Times, 6/14/15).

The reference to Berlin reflects the significance of this seemingly modest deployment. As retired Army Colonel John M. Collins noted in Military Strategy (2001):

Tiny tripwires can…serve useful purposes….Soviet armed forces could have swamped the Berlin Brigade any time the Kremlin gave a green light, but doing so would have risked a nuclear war with NATO.

For now, nuclear war is U.S. imperialism’s sole trump card. This reflects the rulers’ strategic weakness and workers’ potential strength. It dates back to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, when mass anti-imperialist actions of the 1960s and 1970s — in which our Party played a crucial role — undermined the bosses’ genocidal campaign. Ever since, U.S. rulers have been unable to implement a draft to field the millions-strong military they need. Shrinking economic power and industrial capacity curtails the rulers’ ability to produce conventional weapons in quantities comparable to those of World War II.
(Class-blind militarism is in short supply among U.S. allies in Europe, as well. According to a June 2015 Pew Research poll, “at least half in Germany, France and Italy are unwilling to use military force to defend other NATO members against Russian aggression.”)
As a cheaper alternative to conventional warfare, U.S. imperialists have developed the ability to deliver city-obliterating nuclear weapons anywhere on earth.
Islands of War
On June 12, Australia’s Sydney Morning Post reported on the growing tensions in the South China Sea:

China has responded to an international outcry over its construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea by accelerating the building program….Australia, the United States and most recently the G7 group of rich nations have all warned China to stop its frenetic sand-dredging activities, fearing that it is creating airstrips, ports and battlements that will dramatically alter the balance of regional military power.

While China’s new outposts would pose no problem for a nuclear-armed U.S. in an all-out World War III, they could be significant in preliminary proxy battles. U.S. military strategists worry that the islands will enable China’s army to enforce its air and naval power against weak defenses of countries with competing territorial claims, like Vietnam and the Philippines (see CHALLENGE, 6/17).
The International Working Class Needs You
In their competition for financial dominance, the bosses in the U.S., Russia and China have killed millions of workers across the globe. As the capitalist gear up for the next stage of imperialist war, workers must resist these mass-murdering plans. We must reject the bosses’ nationalist, racist ideas. As U.S. capitalism tries to distract us with another round of presidential elections, we must recognize that voting will never stop inter-imperialist slaughter.
The only solution is to unite other workers in Progressive Labor Party and organize millions to thwart the bosses’ agenda for slaughter. Join us as we prepare to turn the next war for profit into a class war for communist revolution.

BROOKLYN — Students and education workers in a high school here cheered on as anti-racist poems, dances, video interviews and speeches were performed at the school’s first ever anti-racist assembly! This event was organized by teachers and friends of Progressive Labor Party.
The idea  was to counter an upsurge of racist expression, by students, in particular anti-Haitian, comments. It emerged when one courageous student came forward and spoke about what so many students endure daily. It is no surprise that some students repeat the racist remarks they hear in society. This capitalist system we live under was built on racism. Beyond the billions of super-profits that the bosses make from paying Black, Latin and immigrant workers less, the main way racism hurts our class is by convincing us that we are more different than similar, based on how we look or where we were born.
Students Take the Lead
When workers don’t unite, the bosses win. We can’t fight for a better society if we are divided. So whenever racism rears its ugly head — whether it’s the police beating and killing us on the streets, or budget cuts in schools, or racist comments made in class — we need to speak up, organize and fight back! This was the message of the assembly.
After teachers in PLP made the call for the anti-racist assembly and more than 60 students and staff took it up. A group of young women, anti-racist para-professionals took the lead in involving students. They organized a dance that incorporated music from Haiti, Jamaica and Latin America. It was performed by a group of multi-racial students. They also created a five-minute video clip, interviewing students about what they felt when they heard racist comments made in school and what they thought was the best response. They created posters advertising the assembly and also emceed the event. Without their leadership, this assembly would not have happened.
Speak Up and Fight Back
During the assembly, students marched down the aisles of the auditorium with their mouths taped over, then ripped the tape off to begin their performances, as a metaphor for speaking up against racism. This led into anti-racist poems, raps and speeches, written and performed by students. A group of drummers from Haiti performed with students, along with a pair of alumni who did a beautiful anti-slavery dance.
 Many students and teachers involved are CHALLENGE readers. Some also attended this year’s May Day march. They stepped forward and took leadership after the communists’ call to fight racism.
It is now our job to continue to win workers and students at this school to understand that the only real solution to ending racism is the fight for communism. Under communism, racism would be banned. Unlike capitalism which thrives on racism and disunity, communism require workers around the world to unite and collectively organize all aspects of society.
This inspiring event shows the potential for masses to be won to multiracial unity. But this is just the beginning. An international club is now being formed at the school. We will use it to continue to lead with anti-racist ideas and actions. The struggle continues!

BROOKLYN, June 14 — Three years ago, Shantel Davis was murdered by Philip Atkins, a plainclothes detective for the New York Police Department, at the intersection of East 38th Street and Church Avenue in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. In the ensuing weeks and months, Shantel’s relatives, neighbors, along with members of PLP, local clergy and elected officials organized a series of marches to the 67th Precinct to demand justice.  
Ever since that tragic day, Shantel’s sister battled through phases of grief but remained steadfast in her determination to keep her Shantel’s memory alive.  While misleaders from a phony left group and the New York City Council attempted to derail the struggle away from confrontation with the NYPD and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, the anger of Shantel’s family and friends and members of Progressive Labor Party burned even brighter.
A comrade was invited to help open today’s commemorative rally by recounting the stages of the struggle, from street closures to rallying at the DA office to motorcades, from confronting ex-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to school-based speak-outs and much more.  
Then family members of eleven other brothers and sisters killed by the NYPD over the course of the past twenty years recounted their struggles. Some described their meetings with mayors, governors, others of the need for a Baltimore-style uprising in New York. They have seen fascist disregard for the lives of Black and Latin youth, their sons and daughters, up close.
A comrade was invited by Shantel’s sister to close the rally.  After attacking the racist policy of meeting youth at predominantly Black and Latino high schools with an NYPD scanning operation and calling for an end to racist policing in our schools, he went on to hail the working-class fighters who preceded him on the microphone as the greatest educators in the city.  He recounted all the varieties of reforms these families have pursued in search of justice and called it a lesson in our collective education about the true nature of the racist system we live under.  He reminded all present of capitalism’s origins in racist genocide and slavery and its current trend toward more war. There were many nods and approvals when he suggested that if justice is what matters most, then revolution might be the only way we will get it.
The evening closed with the blocking of traffic, a prayer and release of balloons in Shantel’s memory as a dozen of her friends from a local motorcycle club revved their engines in solidarity. It was a night to remember, with the unbeatable combination of communist politics and mass anger that will not die. It was not the last time we will gather and call for revolution in Shantel’s name.